


Burial Rites

by crownedpawn (hulklinging)



Category: Statement Begins - TMA OC Server
Genre: Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Other, Temporary Character Death, The Buried - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25477183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/crownedpawn
Summary: Logically, their lover is out of their reach.But Jade is not of the logical sort, and they are not afraid of the End.
Relationships: Jade Heartfell/Lila Heartfell
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Burial Rites

**Author's Note:**

> Jade belongs to Kate.  
> Lila belongs to [Kele. Statement Begins is a roleplay server and collaborative writing project, set in the world of the Magnus Archives.](https://twitter.com/kelesart)

It’s strange, to live so long and to think that perhaps they’ve experienced all there is to experience, the whole gauntlet of human emotions, and left them behind, they left a normal life behind, buried under fear and rock and a war that wasn’t theirs, and yet can still be surprised. 

See, feelings cling like dirt, stubborn. They get under their nails and in their hair and under their tongue, sweet like soil.

(Soil’s strange, too close to the sun to truly be theirs, so much life and so much potential in it. They shouldn’t like it so much, they think)

They think this might be love, although that word is a hard one, doesn’t come easily. It’s more like  _ touch _ and  _ smiles _ and wanting to be brave, not just being unafraid but being afraid and doing things anyway.

People have compared love to flying and so Jade has always thought it wasn’t for them. So maybe this isn’t love at all, maybe this is just wanting to belong, to make the space around them tight small dark but with just enough room for two, now.

The problem with leaving that space is that when it’s left empty, it is cavernous, it is echoing and cold and it aches like the sky does. Jade thinks they could fall into that hole get pulled right up, and no love for their god could save them.

So when Lila disappears, they notice. Of course they do. There’s a difference between not here and not anywhere, and Jade knows her footsteps by heart, feels her absence like a missing heartbeat.

Others tell them it’s impossible. That she’s  _ gone, _ but here’s the thing about The Buried. Others might deal in what ifs, in things beyond touch, in places that don’t or can’t exist. But The Buried is present, it is tangible, it is under your feet and it is  _ starving  _ and it is  _ close  _ and it offers you a space just a little too small that you can call your own. So Jade listens to what they’re saying and reaches deep and knows that it doesn’t matter. Lila hasn’t gone up, and so she must have gone down, and nothing is untouchable, in Too Close I Cannot Breathe.

They descend. Eventually, the tunnels should stop. Logically, they cannot continue forever. But fear isn’t logic. Fear is lips bit to bleeding, gouges on the inside of coffins and splinters in nailbeds. Fear is something Jade knows better than most, and it walks with them like a lover as they go into the impossible deep.

And they find her. Maybe it’s Hell, maybe it’s worse, maybe it’s just the deepest grave the End could bear to give her. But there Lila lays, in a cavern that smells like death and decay and  _ dirt. _ The ceiling shouldn’t be able to reach so high, the air shouldn't be so thick, the Vast shouldn’t be able to reach this far down but Jade’s fear has brought it here, even as their trust in their own entity has let them try.

But Lila looks so beautiful, like a princess in a fairy tale, and Jade remembers being a child, stories passed from hand to hand like a truth, and they have come so far. They can’t turn around now.

(Those stories, those memories, they shouldn’t exist either. It’s been so long, hidden under so much rubble. But things that are buried are sometimes unearthed, by shifting earth, by living and dying, by time. It was the right time)

They step into the chamber, and their footsteps echo. Their fear is heavy on their tongue, but they know all about continuing on as your airways slowly fill with something they shouldn’t. They think of the dark, they think of concrete crushing the life from them, and their feet stay on the ground, even as the cavernous space tries to pull them up and into it and away. They think of bones like fossils, turned by time and tragedy into something that can last forever. A perfect collaboration of Lila’s entity and their own, really.

The cavern groans, grows even larger. If they look up, they might see stars, feel it scream.

But they don’t look up. They think of time, of how much they’ve had and how much they can still have. The Buried is patient. Their steps slow, but stay grounded. They walk.

The pedestal Lila is laid out on isn’t so tall, once they reach it. It’s just at the perfect height for Jade to reach out, brush the hair from Lila’s face. They’ve never known a Lila alive, so it’s not that they can say that Lila looks dead, in this place. But she does look… sunken. Empty. Hollow.

The anger is rumbling beneath the surface now. They want to choke the people who are responsible for this, watch their bones snap as the holes they’re in get too small to accommodate such trivial things as skeletons, until all they are is existing, struggling lungs and fear thick enough to gasp on, and the Too Close Too Close Too Close…

But the Buried is patient. They leave that anger to age into something stronger, and they put it to the side. They will come back for it, when it is time. In this moment, they press their hands against Lila’s skin, framing her face with hands cracked and bloody, like they’ve been using them to dig, dig all the way here. They’d do it again. She’s worth it.

They are so heavy, to fight against the Vast that calls them. But their hands are as soft, as light a touch as they can manage, as they lean in.

“I’d like to kiss you,” Jade whispers to Lila, because the stories always skip this part.

These words do not echo, just settle onto Lila’s face like that first shovel of dirt across a coffin lid. And Jade can see the shift, how Lila’s skin looks more full, how the empty eyesockets fill in again underneath the bruised lids.

Lila opens her eyes, and the cavern collapses around them.

Jade could stop it, maybe. It doesn’t feel like this is the Vast, more like the dirt is claiming the space the Vast left behind as it fled, but that is not their first thought. Their first thought is this – climbing up onto the pedestal, their body arched over Lila’s, forehead to forehead as they offer their body like an overhang, like a part of wall that is just sturdy enough to keep one person breathing a little longer than the bodies around them.

The world collapses around them, and Jade laughs, because even in this newly dark space Lila’s eyes are bright, and her body shifts to better support their own, holding onto each other like there’s nothing else at all.

There are bodies like this all over, curled up together in a moment of disaster. Comfort in the face of the volcano, the flood, the bomb. Some have been found and some still rest, buried in the ground and forgotten.

Jade can feel them, in this moment. The lovers of the past, eternal embraces, a space just big enough for two, forever. And it is tempting, so tempting.

But the Buried is patient, and Jade is old but not, they are realizing, old enough to know everything.

They wait until the ground settles around them, and then shifts, presses a kiss to Lila’s lips. Dead, but here. That’s all they wanted. To share a ‘here’, a ‘now.’

They can always come back to this, if they want to. A grave for two. But for now, they reach out, and the world shifts, tunnels reaching back to clear a way back home.

“Walk with me?” Jade asks.

“Show me the way?” Lila asks.

Jade doesn’t answer, they just reach down, find Lila’s hand, and hold on. Together, they stand, and hand in hand, they walk.

They don’t let go until they reach the surface, and for a long time after that.


End file.
